1. We have all a great love for St. Patrick, and I used to read everything I could lay my hands on concerning him when I was a Roman Catholic priest. Now, St. Patrick left some writings in manuscript, and one of these is called “St. Patrick’s Confession.” All agree in believing this the genuine work of St. Patrick. Now, the following are the opening words of St. Patrick’s Confession:—“I, Patrick, a sinner, the rudest and the least of all the faithful, and most contemptible to very many, had for my father Calpurnius, a deacon, a son of Potitus a presbyter, who dwelt in the village of Bannavem Taberniae.” Presbyter, I may tell you, is the old word for priest, so we find that St. Patrick’s father was a deacon, and his grandfather a priest. If a Roman Catholic deacon or priest were to marry now, he would at once be suspended; and don’t you think the priests and deacons living only three centuries after Christ were more likely to be right than those of the nineteenth century? Again, in none of the works of St. Patrick is there a single word about devotion to the Blessed Virgin, the Sacrifice of the Mass, Purgatory, Invocation of Saints, or the like. St. Patrick always prays to God alone, and Joceline, an early Roman Catholic historian, says of him—“He used to read the Bible to the people, and explain it to them for days and nights together.” Lastly, you have always believed, and so did I for nearly thirty years, that St. Patrick planted the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland in the fifth century. We know that every part of the Island became Christian, and that Ireland was called “the Island of Saints.” But if St. Patrick planted the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland in the fifth century, is it not very curious that in the Bull given by Adrian IV. to Henry the Second, in which he permits Henry to conquer Ireland, the Pope expressly states he does it “in order to widen the bounds of the Church.” The Pope handed over Ireland to Henry the Second on condition “that he would take care that a penny should be annually paid from every house in Ireland to St. Peter,” and his Holiness expressly states that his object is “to widen the bounds of the Church.” Now, Christianity had been spread into every corner of “the Island of Saints” for seven centuries, and yet the Pope wants to “widen the boundaries of the Church” by introducing _his_ religion into Ireland. What does it mean? Well, I give you the facts from Dr. Lanigan, a Roman Catholic historian (vol. iv., 164), and leave you to draw your own conclusion.